


Snipe Hunts

by mightyscrub



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Fluff, M/M, i keep trying to write happy cute things during mgs4 and this is the result pff, yet also angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 15:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7393498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightyscrub/pseuds/mightyscrub
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scenes of Sunny growing up on the Nomad.  Jupiter family fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snipe Hunts

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Jupiter family day! Not sure it's my best stuff but uh catch! *throws it at you and runs*

It wasn’t long at all before Philanthropy had built itself an enormous network of “friends” in varying degrees of trustworthiness, and by the time the Nomad became their headquarters, Snake and Otacon had quite a few old allies to choose from in literally getting it off the ground. They started with only two pilots, private and paranoid as they were. The pilots were a couple of ex-pat Brits they’d met on a mission in Manchuria “back in the day” and with some humor their codenames were Puck and Othello.

Otacon would never forget Snake’s final words to them before the Nomad’s maiden take-off.

“Otacon and I are used to having our lives on the line,” he’d said, with that strangely casual directness he had, cigarette stubby and firm between his fingers. “But there’s a kid on this aircraft, boys. If you do _anything_ that puts her in danger, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

It was blunt and simple as that, but Otacon found himself swallowing past a tightening in his throat. He’d been nervous about the quiet danger of this transition, but Snake’s resolute protectiveness was comforting.

It was the first time they both silently agreed that something was more important than The Mission.

To their credit, Puck and Othello responded with steadfast salutes, Puck with a slight glimmer in his eyes because these men also knew Sunny and were friends who cared about her, Snake, and Otacon in ways that went unspoken but perhaps deeper than simply brothers in arms with an important goal. Snake and Otacon had chosen wisely.

As the Nomad prepared for flight, Otacon and Snake returned to their new makeshift living room, and Sunny sat pressed between them as Othello announced the steps of the Nomad’s ascent over the intercom. She was four years old. She couldn’t remember the only time she’d flown in a plane, held tightly in Raiden’s arms.

Her eyes were wide and she made a guttural clicking sound, a nervous tic of hers coupled with a flexing of the corners of her mouth. Otacon shifted an arm around her back at almost the exact same moment that Snake’s hand fell firmly to her small knee. It was funny, their predictability.

In such an enormous aircraft, they barely felt the g-force of the ascent and Otacon had to tell Sunny quietly, “We’re in the air now,” with a quick squeeze of a half-hug.

Her lips worked for a few moments, and then she looked at him and asked, “F-f-flying?”

“Yeah, we’re flying.”

The wideness of her eyes started to take on a bit of awe, maybe even excitement, and Snake’s hand rose to ruffle her hair. A tiny smile at last.

Welcome to the new home, Sunny.

x

Every year on Sunny’s birthday they took out the helicopter and left the Nomad for a short while. They had no information on Sunny’s actual birthday, so with some arbitrariness yet also some symbolism, they gave her the same birthday as her mother, in September. At one point Snake had wryly suggested they give her two birthdays a year, which Otacon vetoed, but taking the helicopter out to celebrate made him regret that just a little. On these days, Snake and Otacon didn’t exist. It was just Dave, Hal, and Sunny.

For her sixth birthday, they all three agreed immediately on an open field below, out in the Alaskan wilderness not far actually from places Dave had once called home. They landed in a sea of knee-length green grass that whispered in the chill. In the spring this place would be covered in wildflowers, but only the stragglers remained now, the slightly dried out ones or leftover cottony seed-fluffs that had burst out of their buds too late for the wind to pick them up properly. Instead Sunny was the one to pick them now, entirely undiscerning when it came to flowers. These leftovers were everything she needed.

Hal and Dave sat in a couple of collapsible lawn chairs watching her as she ran around.

“Pretty good smile,” Dave said absently. It was rather uncharacteristic coming from Dave, but Hal agreed. Sunny was smiling so easily as she shuffled her way through the grass, small fist full of her makeshift bouquet. Increasingly, that smile had become nervous and shy onboard the Nomad.

“You think we can keep her smiling like that?” Hal asked.

“Mm. Yeah. I think we can.” Dave turned to him, a certain glint of mischief in his eyes. “I can see a bit of someone else in her sometimes. I think her face is learning from yours.”

Hal scoffed.

Dave lazily slung an arm into the space between their chairs and Hal took his hand, fingers intertwining loosely. Maybe Dave had him well-trained, just a little.

At last Sunny stumbled over to them, grinning, her face and legs still all baby fat. She split her bouquet in two and presented them to her caretakers.

“Beautiful!” Hal said appreciatively, accepting his little bundle. The stalks were slightly bent and sticky in his hands. “But aren’t we supposed to be giving _you_ presents on your birthday?”

“I-I’m… n-n-not ready f-for… presents,” Sunny said. Presents always came at the end, when it was time to head back.

Dave leaned forward, arms on his knees and his own bouquet perched between them. “I’ve got something for you to do then,” he said conspiratorially.

Sunny beamed at him expectantly.

“I want you to find me a Snipe.”

“W-w-what’s th-that?”

Dave gestured with his hands. “It’s a little bird, about this big. Bright yellow. I heard there might be some around here.”

“I haven’t s-ssseen any… b-birds.”

“Well that’s the thing, Snipes are always hiding. They’re incredibly hard to find. But if you do find one, it’s the prettiest bird you’ll ever see. People have spent their whole lives just hoping to see one Snipe.”

She was growing suspicious. “I’ve n-never heard ab-out Snipes.”

“They’re the most special bird in the world. I always wanted to see one, how about you Uncle Hal?”

Hal gave him a thoroughly blasé look. “… Yeah. Snipes.”

“It’s fine if you don’t want to, but generally it’s a good idea to keep on the lookout. You never know when one might be hanging around. And if you do see one, that’s the luckiest thing that can happen to a person.”

“A-are you m… m-messing with m-me?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t lie about Snipes.”

Sunny was incredibly intelligent, but she was also a kid. It was clear by her face that she very much wanted to believe in this magic bird.

“I-I’ll find one,” she said with great determination.

“If anybody can, it would be you,” Dave agreed. “That’s why I asked you in particular.”

She ran off back into the grass and Hal continued to look at Dave, Look at Dave, his glasses low on his nose, very exasperated indeed.

“She’ll have fun with it, I promise,” Dave said, grinning and leaning back in his chair.

“She’s gonna be looking for Snipes all over the place now.”

“That’s the point. It’s fun.”

“You always did have a weird idea of what’s fun.”

But she looked like she was enjoying herself, running around with such a purpose, excited to potentially meet the prettiest bird in the world.

Hal glanced at Dave again, at the ease of his lopsided grin amidst his scruff. There was gray hair rapidly overtaking his temples… lines on his face that hadn’t been there before. They fought about it sometimes (“you need to see a doctor” “it’s fine”) but in a moment like this Hal could tramp down his constant worry and instead appreciate the face of this person who had somehow become his dearest friend and companion.

This time it was Hal who slipped his hand between the chair space, sticky with flower-dew, and Dave took it, just as automatically.

Today was a good day.

x

Speech therapy games, a slapdash sort of homeschooling, and every Playstation system known to man still weren’t enough to keep a growing child occupied.

She was lonely without kids her age, which translated into an extra desire for attention from the adults around her, her caretakers and the Nomad’s scarce personnel alike, and unfortunately these adults often had work to do.

That was partly the reason Otacon started teaching her to make things. She was a quick-study, bafflingly brilliant, but also she deeply enjoyed learning about the computers and could get engrossed in them for hours.

“Help me make Win.ston,” he told her once.

“W-w-w?” She lost the name mid-stutter.

“Win.ston. He’s a computer program.”

He’d invented Win.ston as a teenager, the name a pun on Windows. Sunny helped him rewrite the code, work out the chinks and smooth over the areas where technology had advanced since his teenage tinkering.

When they were finished, a large light green smiley face was on the screen, under the name Win.ston. Every so often the pixels of the eyes would go horizontal rather than vertical, quick animated blinks.

“H-he’s cute,” Sunny said appreciatively.

“Try typing something to him.”

Sunny had an impressive vocabulary and typed faster than she spoke. She already knew what would happen (she’d written half the code after all) but she still was smiling in anticipation as she typed out a quick message.

_Good morning, Winston._

The smiley face blinked and little green words appeared underneath Sunny’s, a sort of primitive chat box.

[Good morning! What is your name?]

_I’m Sunny._

[That is a good name! It means cheerful or like sunshine. It is an English/American name.]

“I l-l-like him!” Sunny said, beaming.

It started out simple as that. Sunny was excited, Otacon felt rather proud of himself for making her smile like that, and then Sunny spent just about all day sitting and talking to Win.ston.

Then it became a routine. She went to Win.ston when she needed company, and a little alarmingly that meant she went to Win.ston a lot, her legs tucked up underneath her on the computer chair typing away.

Snake didn’t like it. Otacon told him he worried too much, there was nothing wrong with a little imagination.

He could almost convince himself of that too, but then one day they had a small emergency.

He was talking with Snake in the kitchen when a deep rumbling got their attention, a weird shifting in the floor under their feet.

“Storm caught us, Snake,” came Othello’s voice on the intercom. “Passengers please get to a central position, repeat, passengers please get to a central position.”

Snake started briskly for the cockpit to get their specs, as Otacon rushed downstairs. Sunny was on the computer down there with Win.ston. Already the room was shaking despite the aircraft’s size, figures and books clattering from high shelves, but Sunny was strangely fixated on the screen in front of her, face twisted up and distraught as she typed furiously.

“Sunny, it’s gonna be ok but we need to get to a safer room,” Otacon said, behind her chair in an instant. “There’s too much that can fall down here, we need to get—“

“Win.ston’s broken!” Sunny interrupted, with a high panicked noise.

“Sunny—“

She was rapidly trying to fix a bug in his code.

“We can make another Win.ston, right now we have to leave.”

“We c-can’t make another, he’s my f-friend!”

Otacon reached to stop her hands at the keyboard, and she suddenly shrieked, tears falling.

“Sunny!” Otacon gasped, but then the room shook violently, the computer started to buzz as Win.ston’s face vanished, and there was no time for this. He heaved her straight out of the chair and dragged her screaming and crying upstairs through the falling trinkets of their life.

The living room was nice and central in the aircraft, not as affected by the turbulence, and once inside Otacon tried to calm Sunny down but she was sobbing harder than ever, utterly inconsolable.

“What the hell’s happening?” Snake barked the moment he joined them.

“She’s not hurt, it’s just--!”

She let out a wailing shriek, the most her little lungs could wrench out, and Otacon gently but firmly wrestled her kicking and screaming to the floor.

“H-h-he’s my friend!” she kept repeating. “He’s my f-f-friend he’s my friend!!”

“ _Sunny_ ,” Otacon forced out, winded but finally raising his voice. “Win.ston isn’t real! _You’re_ real and your safety is what matters right now!”

“No!”

“He isn’t real!”

“He’s m-m-my friend! My only f-friend--”

“He’s isn’t your friend, he’s isn’t _real_.”

“I _hate_ you,” she bit out, then she pressed her face to the floor and cried.

Otacon could only sit there, struck dumb, with a hand hovering uselessly over her back. Snake came and gently lifted her, curling her up on the bench seat.

He sat next to her and she sniffled against his knee, and Otacon stayed on the floor, the room vibrating ever so slightly around them. He felt sick to his stomach that he couldn’t leave.

Finally, they got through the storm. Othello announced it, and Otacon was the one this time to go speak with the boys in the cockpit, for obvious reasons.

When he came back Sunny had calmed down, and Snake had a large hand resting on her shoulder.

“Looks like we’ve got clear skies now,” Otacon said vaguely to the room at large, trying for a smile.

Sunny’s eyes met his, red-rimmed and big. “Uncle H-h-h-hal?”

“…Yes?”

Her mouth shook and a last couple of straggling tears came out. “I’m s-sssorry. I d-d-don’t h…. I don’t h-hate you.”

All the air left his lungs. “Oh gosh. Sunny, I know that…” He came to sit beside her as her face screwed up again, this time with guilt. “I’m sorry too, sweetheart, I’m really sorry. I love you.”

She turned around squirmingly in the seat, so Otacon got her head in his lap now and Snake got her feet, a reconciliation, and Otacon ran careful fingers through her hair, palmed her cheek.

“I’m sorry, Sunny. I love you.”

“I l-love you too.”

In the exhaustion of such an episode, it didn’t take long for her to fall asleep like this, across the laps of her caretakers, Otacon still tinkering with the hair above her ears absently, the place they sometimes tucked flowers. Snake lifted her again, so light and easy, and took her to her room and her own bed. Safe now.

Otacon stood, and for a long time all he could really do was stand there in that room and think about exactly what had just happened. He’d tricked a little girl ( _his_ little girl) into thinking she had a friend, living alone on an aircraft with dour people who could only keep working towards their goals and pretend not to miss fresh air.

It was a mark of silent understanding, knowing each other for so long, that Snake returned to check on him.

“Otacon,” Snake said, coming to stand just at the edge of his personal space.

Otacon shook his head.

He couldn’t stop the overwhelming awfulness rising in his chest, the tears that squeezed out and slid down his nose. He heaved a ragged breath and demanded, “What the hell are we doing to this child, David?”

Snake’s jaw worked. Even his eyes were somewhat misty, a very rare occurrence, as he frowned ahead at nothing.

“There’s nothing else we can do,” Snake said slowly, as if talking to himself. “Drop her in an orphanage somewhere? The Patriots know exactly who she is. She’s been too deep in this since she was born, Hal. They’ll only see her as a weapon to use against us, sitting there waiting for ‘em.”

Otacon took off his glasses and pressed at his eyes roughly with the heel of his palm, chest shaking with the effort of holding everything in. “It’s not _fair_ ,” he choked out at last, such a stupid sentiment, something he should’ve been far past. Of course nothing was fair in this world.

But Snake didn’t judge him. If anything, Snake’s vague grunt was an agreement.

Sunny sometimes made them believe in unbelievable things, foster silly hopes that should’ve been beaten out of them years ago.

“It’s not fair,” Otacon repeated, sniffing and gulping and trying to get himself together. Sunny deserved so much better.

Snake reached for his back pocket, for his cigarettes, but then stopped, and instead that arm came to slide across Otacon’s shoulders with familiarity. They leaned into each other, and for the first time in recent memory Otacon thought he heard almost-tears in Snake’s thick swallowing.

They couldn’t protect her from the pain of this life, could they?

All they could do was keep her going and hope with all their might for the best.

x

Seven years old. Sunny was stomping about through every room of the Nomad in her too-large boots (she grew so fast these days they had to think ahead), getting on hands and knees to look into every small corner. Snake had convinced her a Snipe flew onboard somewhere over Argentina.

She sang a made-up song as she hunted for it.

“Snipe, scientific name _Columba splendiferous _, coming to live with us, where are you Mr. Snipe.”__

__Otacon was working at his computer, and obediently lifted his legs as she crawled underneath them to check under his desk._ _

__“Did Darwin ever draw your beak? You’re handsome with your scaly feet. Where are you Mr. Snipe, I just want to say helloooooo.”_ _

__Snake was smoking in the corner. Perhaps this particular Snipe hunt was to distract Sunny while he stole back his cigarettes, but he also had the warmth of fondness in his eyes as he watched her._ _

__His hair was entirely gray now, his face lined and tired. His movements were slower, he had frequent pains. They’d finally started the process of finding him a more long-term doctor, and Snake hated it adamantly._ _

__So did Otacon, but he wasn’t as vocal about it._ _

__He teasingly placed one of his slippered feet on Sunny’s back as she scooted her way out again butt-first, and she laughed and batted him away._ _

__“Help me f-find him,” she ordered._ _

__“I’ll try my best Snipe call,” Otacon said. He was looking a bit frazzled probably, hadn’t shaved properly in awhile, but for Sunny he smiled hugely and tried a verse of his own, singing as badly as he could on purpose._ _

__“Mr. Snipe you’ve got some downy fluff! Er… A gizzard and some other stuff!”_ _

__“Don’t t-talk about his guts!”_ _

__“That is pretty rude, huh…”_ _

__Snake, the seasoned expert on all things Snipe, leaned back in his chair with a smile of his own. “Don’t forget that Snipes have the most delicate and artful wings of any bird.”_ _

__“Your flying feathers touch the sky!” Sunny sang, and then she gestured to Otacon as if to say _Take it away Uncle Hal!__ _

__“Uh…” What rhymed with sky? “You’re an aerodynamic little guy!”_ _

__“Good word,” Sunny commented._ _

__“Thanks.”_ _

__“Your s-singing though…” She wrinkled her nose._ _

__“You don’t like my singing?” Otacon sang. “You don’t like myyy siiiinging?”_ _

__She kicked at his shins laughingly._ _

__In the meanwhile, Snake stood, his knees snapping audibly, producing an annoyed wince. His cigarette was burning low, meaning he was probably on his way up to replenish his stash._ _

__“Need to get me some lunch,” he lied._ _

__“Th-there could be a S-Snipe in the kitchen!” Sunny said, gearing up to go with him._ _

__He snorted, obviously a bit chagrined at how his plan had backfired, but he was still looking at her with that deepset affection that seemed to only be for her. Well. Her and Otacon, perhaps. The folds that had grown so quickly at the corners of Snake’s eyes crinkled._ _

__Otacon knew Snake was somehow dying. They both knew, as if they’d both been expecting some kind of awful blow like this all along._ _

__The question was, did Sunny know?_ _

__They kept their furtive evening talks a secret, but it was telling that her Snipe hunt seemed to be following Snake from room to room, her songs quietly keeping him company._ _

__“ _Columba splendiferous_ , Mr. Snipe I do love you.”_ _

__For now, Otacon left his work and followed them upstairs as well. There were, after all, amazing birds to look for._ _

__x_ _

__Just over a year later was their final mission._ _

__Spiraling, spiraling, intensifying out of control, until finally it was all over, a strange shaky hollowness, an incomprehensible… Calm? Triumph? It was too surreal to properly process._ _

__The only part Otacon could feel in his gut as true and real was the resounding fact that Snake left afterwards._ _

__x_ _

__The first week of “peace” felt like a prolonged panic attack for Otacon, a sort of distant thrumming awfulness that he stuffed at the back of his head and ignored. There was still business to take care of._ _

__Their pilots were dismissed. The Nomad could finally be retired. Even Puck and Othello were off to live their own lives now, and in his stupor Otacon was surprised to receive large, strong-armed hugs from both of them._ _

__His voice cracked when he thanked them._ _

__He and Sunny would stay at a stuffy little house while the world settled down and Otacon deciphered what to do next, what would be best for Sunny from here on out._ _

__In Otacon’s head was this swirling realization that everything was on him now. The responsibility of protecting this legacy, of caring for Sunny… He always knew this day would come, and he didn’t regret it, he didn’t balk at what he deeply believed he must do. He just hadn’t anticipated just how wrenching this loneliness would be._ _

__They didn’t have much to move into the house, just sparse clothes and computers and gaming systems. They only had two bags, and Otacon almost dropped both of them as they approached the front door, stopping dead in the driveway._ _

__Snake was sitting on the front step._ _

__“You’re back!” Sunny beamed and ran right for him, waiting as Snake got very slowly to his feet before throwing her arms around his legs. When had she gotten this tall? His hand rested on her head, and she was crying, happy tears of course, but as much as Otacon had tried to protect her she must have known, she must have been just as shocked as he was to see Snake in one piece like this._ _

__Snake was alive._ _

__Otacon’s legs felt stiff and like they weren’t really attached to him as he found himself automatically stepping forward._ _

__“Heard you’d be staying here,” Snake said, not quite meeting his eyes._ _

__Otacon smiled, reflexively, more for Sunny’s sake, but god his heart was hammering in infinite optimism already. “Couldn’t have called ahead?”_ _

__“Sorry,” Snake said softly._ _

__“No… Welcome back, Snake.”_ _

__Sunny dragged them inside, filling up the adults’ silences with nervous relieved chatter (she had gotten that from Otacon hadn’t she?), and they slid back into their proper places, aligning together._ _

__After dinner, as Sunny played video games in the other room and they had a moment alone, Snake explained everything to Otacon. He spoke slowly and methodically, as if he couldn’t believe it all either. He spoke of Big Boss not with forgiveness but with more straightforwardness than he ever had, as if in his mind he was examining his father’s visage for the first time, rather than looking away._ _

__In the silence that followed, Otacon reached out to cup Snake’s face in his hands. It was still sometimes hard to get used to this face. The lines and indents had happened so quickly, never got a chance to become familiar or thoroughly explored by hands and kisses. That nasty burn…_ _

__But there was no hesitation at all as Otacon pressed their lips together, slow deep kisses. The physicality between them had grown sparse, mitigated by Snake’s tiredness or perhaps even more by those times when he was distant and self-loathing, but the tickle of Snake’s mustache was something that hadn’t changed, his tongue hadn’t changed, and they kissed each other quietly for a long time._ _

__In this moment, all Otacon cared about was letting Snake know how much he wanted him. How glad he was. It didn’t matter how much longer they had together, if Snake would leave or what. All he cared about was how here in this moment Snake was still with him, alive and maybe even happy._ _

__Hal loved Dave so much. He always had._ _

__Then they were up against the wall, and they got lost in each other just like they always did._ _

__x_ _

__Sunny chose to stay with them, so easily. When Hal suggested more concretely that he could set something up for her in “the real world” she not only refused but also looked at him with a sort of mature pity that made Hal realize he was being foolish._ _

__They wound up in the Canadian Rockies. When Dave had his druthers, he always drifted north. He was the sort of man who needed the smell of mountains._ _

__Their house was small, snug up among the pines, but just about anywhere was spacious compared to years aboard an aircraft, and Sunny spent most of her time outside in the yard getting her boots dirty. It was a small surprise to discover she was an outdoorsy kid… at least until you realized she’d simply never had the chance to be previously._ _

__It was possible that in nine years Hal had never seen Dave this content. He wondered if it was the same for himself._ _

__One afternoon, he started into the living room to speak with Dave, only to find that Sunny had beat him to it. She’d crawled up onto Dave’s knee in the armchair, and from Hal’s vantage point he could see the back of her head curled up under Dave’s chin. Dave sat still but relaxed, his hair all white now, his arm loosely around her on the armrest._ _

__“I found a Snipe in the backyard,” she said quietly in this close moment._ _

__“Did ya?” Dave’s voice was a cracking rasp these days but warm._ _

__“You were right. It was the prettiest bird I’ve ever seen in my life. I caught it in my hands, and I just sat there and told it how pretty it was.”_ _

__“Hmm. Then what?”_ _

__“Then I let it go.”_ _

__“That’s a good girl.”_ _

__Dave ran his hand up and down her back, and as Hal watched tears pinched at the back of his eyes, abrupt and powerful. Yet he smiled, almost defiantly, and it dug into his cheeks hard enough to hurt a little._ _

__He left them alone for now, these people that he loved most._ _

__Outside the window, the sun shone bright and yellow.__

__  
x_ _


End file.
